


Undertale -- The Novelization

by OrganicChemist



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Neutral Route (Undertale), Pacifist Route
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-05
Updated: 2015-12-05
Packaged: 2018-05-04 17:55:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,253
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5343176
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OrganicChemist/pseuds/OrganicChemist





	Undertale -- The Novelization

They say that life flashes before one’s eyes at the point of death.

Even as she lay spread-eagled – her back flat on a bed of bright yellow flowers, her messy brown hair strewn across her face, her gaze fixed on the vast expanse of the cave ceiling high above – Frisk saw no such lifetime review. She took that as a good sign. Much more distressing, however, was the starbursts pain that shook her small body like a thousand bombs going off. The foliage may have cushioned her fall, but small shrubbery can only do so much against a single misstep, a hole in the ground, the law of gravity and, oh, what was surely a thousand-metre vertical drop down to the mountain caves below.

Just… Just how far had she really fallen anyway?

Even if Frisk hadn’t been preoccupied by the excruciating pain permeating every bone in her body, it would have been impossible to say. The cavern seemed to stretch upwards and expand outwards indefinitely. The slimmest slivers of sunlight slipped through the narrow cracks in the ceiling above and shone on the golden flower bed, which gave off a glow that – while not completely driving off the cavern’s encroaching darkness – could at least illuminate Frisk’s immediate surroundings. She risked a sideway glance, gingerly tilting her head to the right and then to the left. Besides the patch of flowers on which she now lay, the cavern was featureless, empty.

“H-h-help…”

Frisk’s plea barely registered even as a whisper. It was not surprising, given the circumstances. Even on a good day, the girl’s voice had long atrophied from disuse.

“S-someone… Help…”

But no one came.

All that answered was a mocking, chilly draft that blew from the dark recesses beyond. It was as if the mountain cave was so expansive as to support its own weather system. It made the already tiny Frisk feel very, very small. Was this– was this what it felt like to die? The enveloping darkness, the crushing loneliness, the advancing cold… Frisk’s extremities began to feel numb and – was it her imagination – even the searing pain started to subside. It won’t be long now. Still no flashes of her all-too-brief life, but at least death’s embrace was comforting, silver linings and all that.

… No. _No_. she couldn’t think that way. She _refused_ to think that way. She refused to die. Not here and now in this wretched, dark, dank cave. And certainly not this way, all alone, with her cries unheard. From where she lay, Frisk twitched and struggled and rocked her body back and forth. She knew she was risking further pain, but pain was good. Pain meant she was still alive. Emerald leaves and golden petals got on her garish blue and purple striped shirt. Had there been anyone watching, Frisk would’ve looked like some spastic, wriggling, flamboyant caterpillar that had decided to skip past the pupa stage and morph directly into an explosion of colour.

A full minute into her thrashing and then Frisk noticed something. In the distance, she saw a sparkle – faint yet somehow shining with a richer gold than the flowers that covered her. Was it just a trick of the light? _No, there it was again!_ The glimmer could have been anything – a hiker carrying a lantern, a reflection against polished rock, a product of Frisk’s delirium. Frisk considered stilling herself and gathering the strength to give out another cry for help. _No, have to keep moving_. Her wild struggling persisted, but now with something resembling a purpose to them.

She needed to get to that light. She didn’t know how and she didn’t know why, but if she could somehow reach it, then help would arrive, the grown-ups would tend to her wounds, and all would be well. Painstaking inch by painstaking inch, Frisk crawled towards the mysterious shimmering, flat on her belly, kicking and pulling, reaching out and using rocky outcrops as leverage to close the distance. So transfixed was she with her goal that it did not occur to Frisk broken bones should have made the journey impossible. At the very least, crawling on all fours should have tired her out. But like a reedy sprout growing towards the sun, the light’s rays invigorated her. Around the halfway mark, barely conscious of it at all, Frisk stood up and hobbled towards her destination. A mere several steps later, she broke into a stride. And then, at last, she stood just two arm’s lengths away from the light.

By now, she was close enough to make out its source. It was not from the lantern of a rescuer or, for that matter, not like anything Frisk had ever seen. It looked like someone had physically taken the very light of the constellations and condensed them into solid form. The light bore the rough outline of a four-pointed star that pulsated like a beating heart, and hovered a metre off the ground. Entranced, Frisk took a step forward, lifted her right arm, reached for the solid light, but then hastily pulled back as if scorched– only, not really, of course.

She had seen the back of her hand and forearm, and there was not a scratch or any trace of the injuries she had sustained from her fall. Frisk instinctively looked at and patted down the rest of her body, first tentatively and then with increasing urgency and force. Nothing. No pain, no cuts, no bruises, no broken bones. Indeed, the only evidence of her bad fall mere minutes prior was her certain memory of it. Frisk looked back towards the bed of flowers which, in the distance, was now a speck of golden yellow against the black canvass of the cave. Had she really travelled that far? In the grand scheme of things, little had changed. For all Frisk knew, the underground passages could have stretched for kilometres and kilometres, and she was, after all, just a small child lost in a very big cave, trapped underneath a very tall mountain no one even knew she had climbed.

But she was alive. She was more than alive, she was _alive and well_. Frisk gazed at the pulsating light that had somehow mended her wounds, and it filled her with determination. So what if she was all alone in the cave? So what if she only had the mysterious light to keep her company? She would find her way out. She would search through every nook and cranny in the cave and–

“Howdy!”

Frisk made a small jump, startled by the greeting that came out from nowhere. She frantically turned around, looked everywhere, saw only grey rocks and the dirt ground, and then fixed her gaze back at the light and straightened up as if to address it. Had the star-shaped light spoken to her? But how could it? That was impossible. But, then, so too had surviving the fall into the cave without a scratch. Frisk would get to the bottom of this. The mysterious healing – and now talking – light could be the key to her finding a way out of this cave and–

“Down here.”

Frisk lowered her gaze at a spot just to the left of the light. She saw a yellow flower not unlike the ones from earlier that had grown in clusters by the dozen. This one, however, was solitary. It also had a face that smiled warmly at her.

“Howdy!” the flower repeated. “I’m Flowey. Flowey the flower!”

Life officially makes no sense.


End file.
